Log: Noriko and Julio

[x-kaminari.livejournal.com]

While hiding from the world, Noriko stumbles across Julio, who is doing much the same.



It was rare that Julio could find quiet in the mansion. The boy's suite was almost always overrun with his taller roommates, a game was almost always on the television or shouts and laughter coming from down the hall. Some days you couldn't go ten feet without tripping over someone, and some days that was quite literal. But Julio's perch of the back stairwell was always deserted, and always the right place where a boy could go with a bottle of Dr. Pepper and a laptop and spend a slow afternoon watching mindless youtube videos .

Noriko had been more or less avoiding the rest of the mansion residents at large for a couple days. There were several motives behind it - as she'd stumblingly told Jennie, New Years was meant to be a holiday you spent with family, and not only wasn't she with hers (such as they were) for the first time, she wasn't even in the right country. Add her fight with Kevin and the whole thing in Kyle's journal and she just hadn't been in the mood for company. But, being Nori, it wasn't like she could just hide out in her room, and it was far too cold to spend a lot of time out on the grounds (thus she had even less capability to sit still for long periods). And so she'd spent a lot of time just wandering around the school, finding unused parlors and hidden corners of the attic and basement. And, it turned out, occasionally stumbling into other students' hideouts. "Hallo, Julio," she said quietly, leaning against the banister.

Curses, foiled again "Hola Nori," Julio replied. Nodding to the girl and saluting her with the bottle in his hand. "Que paso-- what's up?"


"Mou..." she shrugged slightly, a mannerism she seemed to have taken to at last. "Nothing is do." Noriko was definitely less hyperactive than usual, clearly a girl with something on her mind. Although what would have been hard to guess. Certainly, when she suddenly came out with, "Neh, is Julio... anou gay?" it came as something of a surprise.

Nori's timing was impecable, Julio had just begun to take a swig of his drink. The resulting spittake was rather impressive. He coughed violently and pounded himself on the chest, trying to get his breathing under control. He swiped at his mouth with his sleeve before looking up at Nori like she had just sprouted two heads and begun to spit glitter. "What?" he choked.


Nori's eyes widened and she took an involuntary step back, although she was (thankfully) not standing directly in front of Julio. "Is Julio gay?" Counting off on her fingers, she elaborated, "Kevin, Jay, Kyle, Jean-Phillipe - is all boys gay?" She looked honestly quiet baffled.

"No," Julio said, coughing again. "No, Julio is not gay, and not all boys are gay." Julio set the bottle down and coughed another couple of times to rid his windpipe of the last of the liquid. He made a pained face. "Though you would not know it by living here."


"Sou neh..." Sighing, Nori crouched down on the stairs, not quite sitting on them, but balancing on her toes. "Mai ni... In Japan, Nori is no gay. On TV, Haado gei.... fuuuu," it was clearly some sort of reference, "but real gay is no. Now..." She shrugged.

Julio scratched his head as he tried to decipher Nori-speak. "To tell you the truth, I had never known people who were gay in real life before I came here either. I am not sure if this is what the rest of the world is like or not," Julio looked confused and a littler exasperated. "And if you ask Kyle, he insists he is not gay, execpt for Jay. I do not understand that."


"Nori too is not understand. Is not like Japan." She sighed, resting her head on her knees. "Nori is Kevin tatakai... anou..." Straightening up she balled her fists and mimed hitting someone. "Because Kevin is lie."

Julio tilted his head in confusion. "How did Kevin lie?"


Noriko took a deep breath - explaining to Kevin the other night had been hard enough, and she'd had the computer then to do the actual language bits. "Is... was on Kyle journal. Jay... mou, muzukashii... Jay say Kevin boyfriend. Nori is ask why, and Kevin say 'nothing'. Say 'computer... machigata... computer wrong.' But then Kevin say Jay boyfriend." She frowned. "Is lie."

"I wonder if Kevin is embarassed by Jay." Julio himself would be. "Ah, emabarssed, um," he mimned being giggly and embarassed.


The mime-act, with Julio tee-heeing into his hand was almost as funny as the mental image of Kevin doing the same and Nori couldn't help but laugh. It was, however, a good way of getting the point across. "Hatsukashii," she told Julio, then shrugged. "Is... un, maybe. Kevin not want to say is gay, but Jay is... was say."

"I think Jay is much more forceful than Kevin, agressive," he mimed agression for Nori. Which when you thought about it, as Jay was the gay one and Kevin was kinda not really, turned Julio's ideas of homosexuality on it's ear.
That was a harder gesture to follow, but Noriko thought she understood what Julio was trying to say, and shrugged slightly. "Is don't know. Kevin... Kevin no baka." She wrinkled her nose, expressing her frustration with the boy.

'Baka' Julio had become familiar with, as he'd heard it used frequently these past months. "Si, Kevin is a baka. He should say whether he is one or the other, either you are or you are not," he nodded firmly. "If only so they do not confuse me later."

"Da ne?" It sounded more like an agreement than a question, particularly as Noriko went on to say, "And no to friend lie."

"Exactly," Julio said, polishing off the rest of his drink. "I would not lie to you Nori," Julio said amiably. "Even about horrible embarrassing subjects." Simply because her shaky grasp of English would allow him to get away with more.

"Thank you," Nori said simply, although there was a part of her mind which was well aware that it was only because the whole thing had happened on the journals that she'd even known what was going on. She wouldn't ever tell anyone, but that was also part of why she was so upset with Kevin - he hadn't just lied, he'd told her the translation program, her only real way of communicating freely with anyone, was wrong. She wouldn't show anyone, but it had shook her badly.

"Now, shall we continue to hide here or somewhere else? I do have a driver's license, you know." Julio was feeling twitchy anyway, the mansion that was one his safe haven and refuge was now becoming small and uncomfortable.

Noriko smiled at that. "Let's go."